Naked Barbies in mustaches!

“Different though the sexes are, they inter-mix. 

In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, 

and often it is only the clothes that keep the male or female likeness, 

while underneath the sex is the very opposite of what it is above.” 

-- Virginia Woolf

Naked Barbies in mustaches 6-1-13

“I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. 

I've just done what I damn well wanted to, and I've made enough money to support myself, 

and ain't afraid of being alone.” 

-- Katharine Hepburn 

"The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood 

that she must become something other than herself, 

deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others.”

-- Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions 

In today's edition of Helpful Advice from an Exhausted Insomniac's Addled, Sleep-Deprived Brain ...

Sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do just to keep breathing.

If gluing silicone mustaches on naked thrift store Barbies helps to get you through a day without totally losing your shit, then for fuck's sake, please glue silicone mustaches on naked thrift store Barbies.

Because the way I see it, gluing silicone mustaches on naked thrift store Barbies doesn't hurt anybody. It might keep you from hurting yourself. And it's fun for the Barbies!

Here at A Face A Day, that's what we call a "win-win-win".

So if you feel like you might be about to lose your shit, STOP!
Be a win-win-winner, like me, and glue silicone mustaches on naked thrift store Barbies instead!

Next time on Helpful Advice from an Exhausted Insomniac's Addled, Sleep-Deprived Brain, I'll discuss some burning insomniac questions, like "Who the fuck is going to eat all of these cookies?" and "3 a.m. Dilemma: Ironing or pumping iron?"

Bruiser

“Some bruises you wear like badges of honour: 

when you got it playing rugby, or quad racing, or falling off something while drunk, 

no opportunity is lost to show off a good contusion. 

A bruise inflicted by someone else, however, is a whole other story: 

it's like a big flashing arrow marking you out as punchable."

                                                                                                             -- Paul Murray

Son Gohan and Joe 4-10-13

There's a new troublemaker causing a ruckus here at A Face A Day.

His name is Son Gohan and he's a character from a Japanese manga series called "Dragon Ball."
I only know this information because I looked him up on the Internet.
I don't really know anything about manga, or anime. Nor do I care. All I know is that I got a pretty angry action figure for 99 cents at the thrift store.

His face looks like this.

All the time.

Son Gohan 4-10-13

His arms move a little bit, but they don't go all the way down, so he's always got his dukes up, like he's perpetually looking for a fight -- or perpetually in a fight -- constantly throwing, or blocking, a punch. Also, he twists at the torso, but his legs don't move, so his stance is fixed and rigid.

Sadly, there are people in the world who are a lot like that.

People who are perpetually looking for a fight. People who are forever stuck in a fixed and rigid stance.

Inflexible people.

Angry people. 

With angry faces.

He and Joe got into a bit of a scrap.
Actually, Son Gohan kind of beat the shit out of Joe.
But it's all good. Joe's tough. Joe's flexible. He'll bounce back.

The way you make me feel

"Who cares about pretty?

I'm going for noticeable."

                                                                           -- Veronica Roth, Divergent

 

Thrift store doll and Barbies 3-24-13

 

Big bag 'o Barbies

"Do you think I'm wonderful?" she asked him one day as they leaned against the trunk of a petrified maple.

"No," he said.

"Why?"

"Because so many girls are wonderful. I imagine hundreds of men have called their loves wonderful today, and it's only noon. You couldn't be something that hundreds of others are."

-- Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated

 

Thrift store Barbies 3-22-13

I scored an unexpected windfall at the thrift store when I bought a bag of seven Barbie dolls for $2.99. It was mere minutes before the store closed, and yet, somehow, nobody had snatched up this lucky find.

I'm no math wiz, but at $2.99 plus tax, they come out to roughly 44 cents apiece. Of course, new Barbies come with clothes. Mine are all buck naked.

I didn't have my own Barbies when I was little. My sisters had them. Although I did have a Ken. He was a "mod-style" Ken, (right) with bushy long-ish hair and a stick-on beard, sideburns and mustache. (I scissored his mod-style hair into a buzz cut and stuck the facial hair on myself -- big surprise).

I preferred playing out back in the dirt with my "Best of the West" action figures. I had an Indian chief, an outlaw cowboy clad in all-black, with guns and a quick draw arm, and Johnny and Josie West, a couple of horses and a Jeep (not pink -- a rugged, copper-colored, real Jeep).

Thrift store Barbies (2) 3-22-13

I read a very insightful essay recently, about the psychology of girls and their Barbies. Here is an excerpt:


"In the past few decades quite a few people have suggested–citing most often the offense of impossible proportions–that Barbie dolls teach young girls to hate themselves. But the opposite may be true. British researchers recently found that girls between the ages of seven and eleven harbor surprisingly strong feelings of dislike for their Barbie dolls, with no other toy or brand name inspiring such a negative response from the children. The dolls “provoked rejection, hatred, and violence” and many girls preferred Barbie torture–by cutting, burning, decapitation, or microwaving–over other ways of playing with the doll. Reasons that the girls hated their Barbies included, somewhat poetically, the fact that they were “plastic.” The researchers also noted that the girls never spoke of one single, special Barbie, but tended to talk about having a box full of anonymous Barbies. “On a deeper level Barbie has become inanimate,” one of the researchers remarked. “She has lost any individual warmth that she might have possessed if she were perceived as a singular person. This may go some way towards explaining the violence and torture.” -- Eula Biss, "Relations"

If you want to read all of Eula Biss' essay (I recommend it), you can find it here: http://www.identitytheory.com/eula-biss-relations/

If you don't want to read it, that's fine. Do whatever you want. 

I will be out back torturing my new Barbies.

Fighting my demons

Sometimes I wrestle with my demons.
Sometimes we just snuggle.

Fighting my demons 2-5-13

I suppose there are people who don't have to constantly watch their backs and look over their shoulders for a potential ambush from their cadre of personal demons.
 
I am not one of those people.

I have demons-a-plenty. Insecurity. Fear. Self pity. Addictions. The Past. Failure. Doubt. Shame. Guilt. Anxiety. Rage. They circle me constantly, like cheetahs camouflaged in the tall grass. Stalking. Watching. And I'm just a weak gazelle hanging out a little too close to the edge of the herd.
Sometimes I escape. And sometimes the cheetah sinks its claws in deep and strangles me with a bite to the neck. But even if I do slip free, I know another strike is coming. Because the cheetah is a hungry, hungry cat.

What's her face

Google eye Barbie 1-21-13

This face is actually a Barbie. A Batgirl Barbie, to be precise, sans bat-mask. I photographed her wearing a pair of plastic jiggle eyes, and then just kept manipulating the images and experimenting with effects until eventually I got these. Days like this are often practice sessions that yield something else further down the line. Taking time to free-form without a specific agenda or end product in mind is very satisfying, creatively. No rules. No lines. No voices allowed telling me what's wrong or right. Just the dizzy freedom of riding the wave as long as it lasts.

Google eyed Barbie 2, 1-21-13

Man of a thousand faces?

If anyone is tired of Joe's face, I'm sorry. But it's my blog and I'll post what I want to. Practicing self portrait continually teaches me how a face can change from day to day, and even moment to moment, to a point where separate portraits of the same face can look convincingly like portraits of different people. I think really honest portraiture teases out the multiple selves that dwell inside us all, selves that show themselves, if fleetingly, on the surface of our faces. Joe's face does not change. It is inanimate. It is fixed. Or so I thought. It turns out that even a static, molded plastic face has a capacity for expression and a changeability of personality. It is elusive, and that fascinates me. And if something is elusive and it fascinates me, I will continue trying to capture it in images. Bear with me.

Joe 1-8-13

Hello Gorgeous

A few scraps cutout from magazine photos animated this blank wooden mannequin's face with a surprisingly interesting expression. Something tells me we'll be seeing more of her. Or maybe him. Hmmm.

Wood mannequin 1-7-13

Face to face

I'm not afraid to admit that I still like playing with dolls. Although Joe looks kind of perplexed about the whole thing.

Joe 1-6-13